Summary

The study was a comprehensive analysis of felonious
killings of officers. The purposes of the study were (1) to analyze
the nature and circumstances of incidents of felonious police killings
and (2) to analyze trends in the numbers and rates of killings across
different types of agencies and to explain these differences. For Part
1, Incident-Level Data, an incident-level database was created to
capture all incidents involving the death of a police officer from
1983 through 1992. Data on officers and incidents were collected from
the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) data
collection as coded by the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. In
addition to the UCR data, the Police Foundation also coded information
from the LEOKA narratives that are not part of the computerized LEOKA
database from the FBI. For Part 2, Agency-Level Data, the researchers
created an agency-level database to research systematic differences
among rates at which law enforcement officers had been feloniously
killed from 1977 through 1992. The investigators focused on the 56
largest law enforcement agencies because of the availability of data
for explanatory variables. Variables in Part 1 include year of
killing, involvement of other officers, if the officer was killed with
his/her own weapon, circumstances of the killing, location of fatal
wounds, distance between officer and offender, if the victim was
wearing body armor, if different officers were killed in the same
incident, if the officer was in uniform, actions of the killer and of
the officer at entry and final stage, if the killer was visible at
first, if the officer thought the killer was a felon suspect, if the
officer was shot at entry, and circumstances at anticipation, entry,
and final stages. Demographic variables for Part 1 include victim's
sex, age, race, type of assignment, rank, years of experience, agency,
population group, and if the officer was working a security job. Part
2 contains variables describing the general municipal environment,
such as whether the agency is located in the South, level of poverty
according to a poverty index, population density, percent of
population that was Hispanic or Black, and population aged 15-34 years
old. Variables capturing the crime environment include the violent
crime rate, property crime rate, and a gun-related crime
index. Lastly, variables on the environment of the police agencies
include violent and property crime arrests per 1,000 sworn officers,
percentage of officers injured in assaults, and number of sworn
officers.

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Time Period(s)

1977 -- 1992

Date of Collection

1993

Data Collection Notes

(1) The final report for this study includes analysis
of the effect of soft body armor. Data related to this can be found in
POLICE USE OF FORCE [UNITED STATES]: OFFICIAL REPORTS, CITIZEN
COMPLAINTS, AND LEGAL CONSEQUENCES, 1991-1992 (ICPSR 6274). (2) The
user guide, codebook, and data collection instrument are provided by
ICPSR as Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The PDF file format was
developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF
reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how
to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web
site.

Study Purpose

Although many police policies are designed to
protect officers from the threat of violence and a great deal of
training is dedicated to teaching officers how to thwart assaults,
researchers have paid little attention to the subject of police
killings. This study examined the geographic and demographic context
of police shootings, the weapons used to kill officers, the offense
circumstances, the characteristics of the police victims and their
assailants, and the punitive consequences for the offenders. The study
was a comprehensive analysis of felonious killings of officers. The
purposes of the study were (1) to analyze the nature and circumstances
of incidents of felonious police killings and (2) to analyze trends in
the numbers and rates of killings across different types of agencies
and to explain these differences.

Study Design

For Part 1 an incident-level database was created
to capture all incidents involving the death of a police officer from
1983 through 1992. Data on officers and incidents were collected from
the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) data
collection as coded by the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. In
addition to the UCR data, the Police Foundation also coded information
from the LEOKA narratives that are not part of the computerized LEOKA
database from the FBI. The narrative data were added because they
provide more detail than the summary data, particularly with respect
to the progression of events leading to the killing. For Part 2 the
researchers created an agency-level database to research systematic
differences among rates at which law enforcement officers had been
feloniously killed from 1977 through 1992. The investigators
focused on the 56 largest law enforcement agencies because of the
availability of data for explanatory variables. This data file
contains variables representing the general environment of the 56
cities, the specific crime environment of those cities, and selected
characteristics of the law enforcement agencies themselves.

Sample

Not applicable.

Universe

Part 1: All officers who were killed from 1983 through
1992 in the United States. Part 2: 56 largest police agencies in the
United States from 1977 to 1992.

Unit(s) of Observation

Part 1: Incidents, Part 2: Agencies

Data Source

Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA),
data of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program

Data Type(s)

administrative records data

Description of Variables

Variables in Part 1 include year of killing,
involvement of other officers, if the officer was killed with his/her
own weapon, circumstances of the killing, location of fatal wounds,
distance between officer and offender, if the victim was wearing body
armor, if different officers were killed in the same incident, if the
officer was in uniform, actions of the killer and of the officer at
entry and final stage, if the killer was visible at first, if the
officer thought the killer was a felon suspect, if the officer was
shot at entry, and circumstances at anticipation, entry, and final
stages. Demographic variables for Part 1 include victim's sex, age,
race, type of assignment, rank, years of experience, agency,
population group, and if the officer was working a security job. Part
2 contains variables describing the general municipal environment,
such as whether the agency is located in the South, level of poverty
according to a poverty index, population density, percent of
population that was Hispanic or Black, and population aged 15-34 years
old. Variables capturing the crime environment include the violent
crime rate, property crime rate, and a gun-related crime
index. Lastly, variables on the environment of the police agencies
include violent and property crime arrests per 1,000 sworn officers,
percentage of officers injured in assaults, and number of sworn
officers.

Response Rates

Presence of Common Scales

Original Release Date

2001-11-29

Version Date

2006-03-30

Version History

2006-03-30 File UG3187.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.

2006-03-30 File CB3187.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2001-11-29 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Standardized missing values.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented.